


Snake Oil

by ipsilateral



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 07:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8836522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipsilateral/pseuds/ipsilateral
Summary: The original Percival Graves, after.





	

i.

His first and only visitor is Tina Goldstein. She seems tired, sallow, eyebrows drawn closer together than usual. 

"President Picquery got reinstated," she tells him. "I wasn't sure if you'd heard, and I thought you should know."

"That was a short trial," says Graves. The words come out rough and gravelly. From lack of use, perhaps; or screaming himself hoarse, or maybe he's just forgotten what his voice sounds like.

Tina blinks. "Well I -- I suppose everyone else was fooled, too, sir."

Graves takes in her worried expression, the way her elbow shifts as she fiddles with the wand in her coat pocket. He thinks about all the scrolling headlines in the papers and the same mugshots printed daily at different angles. _Grindelwald Captured -- How Many Followers Remain? -- Three Witnesses Disappeared --_

The Healers want him to stay, of course, but after Tina leaves, he calmly packs up his things. There's not much of it, just the top half of his wand, its core empty, and a small notebook. 

He tosses the wand into the incinerator bin on the way out.

*

Graves can't really remember, before.

Or, he can. He remembers walking over the marble inlay in the MACUSA building every day, and the memos flitting over the far corner of his desk. He remembers muttering tracking spells in the dead of night, and toeing his shoe into Gnarlak's neck with grim satisfaction, and waking up alone and feeling the cold, damp kitchen tiles under his feet. 

He remembers unlocking the door and walking into his apartment to find someone sitting in the armchair, then a flash of light. He remembers, but the memories no longer seem like his own.

When Graves removes his clothes and stands in the familiar, cramped space of the bathroom, he doesn't know what to expect, but finds that nothing in the mirror is surprising: a yellowing island of a bruise high on his ribs, a craggy, mountainous scar cutting down toward his hip, hair grown wild except for a shorter handful by his left temple. 

His reflection stares back at him, detached.

"Revelio," he says quietly, and tenses up as he waits for a response, but the walls only shimmer for a moment before returning to a flat eggshell color. 

The porcelain of the sink is cold against his skin. He hangs on to that as evidence of reality as he lathers up and slowly, carefully begins to shave.

***

ii.

Johannes logs the purchase into a thick ledger, its sides yellowed with age and blooming with misaligned paper edges. Both of Graves' previous wands had been ebony, and very rigid. The wand that came to him this time was flexible, made of light hemlock; it counterbalanced oddly in his hand, seemingly ready to jump out of his grip and cast spells on its own.

"The wand chooses the wizard, and all that. Things can change," Johannes says pleasantly, but he doesn't meet Graves' eyes.

Graves returns home and tosses the wand into a desk drawer. The rest of the night is smudged away with whiskey and no-maj moonshine, until he finds himself gripping the edges of the sink and leaning into the mirror, as if it'll reveal something new if he just looks for it long enough.

*

Headaches start to gnaw at him, strong enough to overlay his vision with grey. One day, half-insane on lack of sleep, he heads to MACUSA just to tear his office apart until he finds his own records. _Occlumency: Achieved. Veritaserum sensitization: Achieved_ , Graves mouths to himself.

There shouldn't be anything that could penetrate his mind so cleanly, splitting through all the protective barriers as easily as paper. Still, he sits up during sleepless nights to whisper, _protego_ , and watches the spell ripple across the room, a cresting wave that reveals no threats. Nothing at all.

And yet, something inside him thrashes awake in fits.

*

Dawdle is a squib, but he's never been too torn up about it. Knows more about magic than most wizards, anyway, and occasionally disappears into the no-maj world when he gets into trouble. Graves finds him easily, hanging around outside a well-known brothel in Brooklyn.

"Some people who have been Polyjuiced for too long, they sort of. Meld." Dawdle gestures with his hands, then leans in when Graves silently offers him a light.

"Meld," Graves says evenly, taking a drag off his own cigarette. The other hand is shoved into his coat pocket, turning the lighter over and over between his fingers.

"Yeah. It's old magic, that potions stuff. Y'know, pre-wand, pre-incantation," Dawdle explains. "You're not supposed to have two of you walking around all the time because that's two essences instead of one. Two souls, even. If it goes on for too long, things can get messy."

Graves wants to laugh. "But polyjuice is just a shell. It's a damn disguise, it's just. The mask always comes off."

"I know, it doesn't make sense," Dawdle agrees. "But shit, Mister Graves, magic doesn't make sense either." 

He exhales upward. Graves watches the smoke curl and flower, haloed in the buttery yellow glow of the streetlamp, and feels a tug of familiarity. 

That night, Graves dreams of being in freefall. He's weightless, formless, until he gasps awake as rage blooms in him like ink in water.

***

iii.

It's well dark when Graves gets home, still drunk. He waves the door open and slaps at all the tittering, unread letters flying around his head from Piquery, and sees too late that once again, someone is in his apartment.

But it's only a boy, he realizes. Lights from the theater marquee across the street peek in through the windows, bathing the room in alternating red and white. Graves recognizes him, maybe -- but when he tries to pinpoint the feeling, it dances just out of reach. 

"I've been searching for you," the boy says. He stands up, clenching and unclenching his fists, as if fighting for control. He's so slight that it should almost be comical, but the magic that lurches from within him is anything but. 

"Easy, there," Graves says. He faces him squarely, keeps his hands at his sides. "You found me, alright? What's your name?"

The boy looks uncertain now. "My name -- you don't -- I think I remember, but." He presses his wrists against his eyes. "You're tricking me again," he says softly.

Graves remains silent. He watches shadows cut sharp lines across the boy's face; red, white, red, and then another headache erupts just between his eyes and a name places itself on Graves' tongue, as if he's been possessed. 

He says, "Credence."

Credence whips his hands away, the uncertainty gone as quickly as it came. His eyes have become an animated black static, standing stark against the alabaster of his skin.

Graves instinctively Apparates, but not before he glimpses the boy's entire being flutter apart like soot on a windy day. He ends up at an abandoned building on Canal, with walls of darkened brick from an old fire. It stains his hands with ash as he leans against it, breathing hard and inexplicably pleased.

*

When Credences comes to him again, it's just before dawn. Graves is already half-dressed and sitting on the windowsill, awake despite the gritty feeling in his eyes.

"You're not -- him," says Credence.

Graves smiles crookedly. "'Fraid not," he says, and it doesn't sound like a lie.

Credence continues to stare. When he takes a small step forward, Graves remains unmoving, impassive. The sun is warm on his back by the time Credence is close enough to touch his face, hesitantly at first, then more boldly as he traces Graves' jaw with one finger.

"You're not him," Credence repeats.

"No," Graves says slowly. "No, I'm not. But you should know that he's escaped. Credence -- "

Suddenly his head jerks back and he's plunged into darkness. Graves is briefly convinced that Credence is a Portkey, or that he's been manipulated into another trap. _Credence needs to be held down and punished, yanked back by the hair, made to beg for more --_

\-- but when he opens his eyes, they're still in New York, still in his drab apartment as the sun silently creeps further across the floor.

Graves blinks, and sees that his hand is gripping a fistful of Credence's hair, forcing him to bend at an odd angle. Credence has his mouth slightly open, is staring at him with a hooded gaze. He looks different. Defiant, but somehow pliable; as if he'll do anything for Graves, but no one else. 

"Shit," Graves says, immediately releasing his grip. "I -- Christ. I'm sorry."

Credence stands straight again. The light is back in his eyes, if only superficially; there seems to be layers to him, and Grave isn't sure he wants to start peeling them back. 

"Why," Credence swallows. "Why did you stop."

"Shit," Graves says again. He feels skittish, almost jittery. "That wasn't -- Credence. Listen to me. Something is not right."

***

iv.

Small uprisings have been occurring with increasing frequency, surging across cities and even reaching small, rural towns in Pennsylvania. Graves' desk is moved back into the common area that multiple Aurors share. A few of them mutter half-hearted condolences, but it doesn't matter -- Graves only cares about the south wall of the office, which is entirely covered in news clippings and color-coded clues about Grindelwald's whereabouts.

The clock face in the MACUSA lobby has both hands overlapped into red more often than not. Graves' team works tirelessly, shadows flickering and blossoming in the night. If the other Aurors notice the crueler spells, the slight hesitation before accepting surrender, they don't let on. And when Picquery and the rest of the council start speaking of war, Graves turns away, tries to keep composed.

He's been doing his own research on the side, though he never finds any satisfying answers. There have been only a few case reports on self-obliviation, and the results are never clear. Could it cure him? he wonders. Could it rid him of thoughts that aren't his own?

Could it --

*

A curtain of black begins seeping in through the ceiling and the cracks in the walls, almost languidly. The muscles in Graves' wand hand start to twitch in a strange morse code rhythm.

He says, "Hello, Credence."

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @ [shipstorms](http://shipstorms.tumblr.com)!


End file.
